


the boat i was born on (we've never gotten off it)

by goddessofstrife



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, No Plot/Plotless, Sibling Bonding, is this emotionally healthy?? um no, this family has zero interpersonal communication skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28212990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofstrife/pseuds/goddessofstrife
Summary: she buys in to the game and paints her lips ruby red and feels powerful.tommy does not hesitate to remind her where that power comes from - he tells her so every time he introduces her as ada shelby instead of thorne, his sister.-ada and tom - in politics, in life, in family, in london. leading up to season 5.
Relationships: Ada Shelby & Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark
Kudos: 22





	the boat i was born on (we've never gotten off it)

**Author's Note:**

> so for all that they disagree with one another, tom trusts ada like he doesn't even trust polly. he trusts ada with his feelings; with his fears. he is only consistently vulnerable with her (he shows up to her house to tell her he stood on a bridge and he saw grace; he tells her that he thinks someone is going to steal his throne; he tells her about his plans with jessie eden). that kind of relationship is very difficult for tom - and he only really achieves it with grace, imho. to me, ada's become a sort of proxy for grace, to act as his emotional "safe space", for lack of a better word.
> 
> anyway, i'll stop rambling lol, but that's just my thought process behind their relationship and its progression/consistency throughout the series.
> 
> will i stop writing about this niche sibling relationship? no. 
> 
> enjoy :)

* * *

ada hears a voice ask her in her dreams : "are you ready?"

she looks up, and it's freddie. he's standing there the way he looked when he'd come to see her the night karl was born: drenched and freezing, cap in hand, coat haphazardly thrown on, hair in disarray.

he asks her again: "are you ready?"

ada blinks. now she's holding karl, still a baby, and she's standing on the roof of her old building in london. freddie is far below her, on the pavement, and with a start of absentminded horror ada registers his mangled body, smashed on the sidewalk, laying in a growing pool of red. his face, twisted off of his broken neck, smiles up at her and she sees his mouth move: "come on, ada. do it for the cause!"

ada awakens in the darkness of her bedroom in london. she reaches underneath her pillow, first, and feels for the handgun she places there every night, and breathes relief when her fingers close around the cool metal grip.

then she sits up, throws off her silken bedcovers and runs for the bathroom; retches into the toilet but nothing comes up.

freddie's laugh echoes in her head and off the walls, and ada sits crouched on the floor tiles until dawn breaks.

* * *

ada remembers when they were children, and tommy had stolen a pack of chocolate from a little storefront on the edge of small heath. he'd brought it back to the house while their father was gone and aunt pol was running the shop, and fought the rest of them off until he could sit and slowly, carefully, divide it up into neat, even pieces -

despite her piss-poor education record ada'd always had some affinity for numbers, and she'd been learning division then, and so she knew that tommy hadn't left any of the chocolate for himself - had never meant to.

she also remembers breaking her own piece into two and curling one into his palm under the table.

* * *

ada does her job well.

she drafts legislation and arranges meetings, translates legal complexities in bills and sends the assistants home early when tommy's in one of his moods, brought on by laudanum and morphine and whiskey and paranoia.

she plays politics and she plays it well, and when the other women - all secretaries - eye her suspiciously she starts remembering birthdays and names and granting days off and handing out favors. in return she gets forgotten slips, misplaced phone numbers, extra advance copies of legislation.

ada walks the hallowed halls of westminster with purpose and enjoys the echo of her heels on the marble floors, smokes cigarettes in the courtyard between MPs and assistants, speaks for her brother and the people of small heath.

she buys in to the game and paints her lips ruby red and feels powerful.

tommy does not hesitate to remind her where that power comes from - he tells her every time he introduces her as ada shelby instead of thorne, _his sister_.

* * *

sometimes, after spending the day in westminster, ada tells tommy to come over for dinner. sometimes, he listens. it is in these moments where ada imagines what they could have been. 

sometimes, she's already invited colonel ben younger to join them and sometimes he drops by randomly, and ada has to fight herself from giggling like a schoolgirl in front of her brother.

karl loves chess and sometimes, ada stands at the counter and cleans up after dinner, watches him play with tom (they're evenly matched, surprisingly).

(ada wonders what freddie would think about that - he'd probably laugh and call it a cosmic joke, she decides. tommy would call it retribution.)

she'll pour out a couple whiskeys and go over to them, kissing karl's temple and laughing lightly when he tries to squirm away, missing her little boy.

one day, tom says, "karl, your mother loves you, eh?", and it's almost a laugh. she can see her son flick his gaze up to his uncle, embarrassed because he wants to impress the man, and tom must know it too, because he reaches a hand out from the chessboard towards her.

"c'mere," he says, and ada readjusts the glasses in her hands and walks around the table to him, where tom takes the whiskey with one hand and slides the other around her waist. "i get one too, don't i?" he asks, teasingly, sly and smug, and she sees the old tommy there. it's sad but it puts her on edge.

ada acquiesces, though, out of some misguided, misplaced sense of nostalgia and a fondness for tommy she couldn't shake even if it killed her, and she kisses his cheek quickly, placing a hand on the back of his head.

"see?" tommy says to karl, and ada seriously wonders if he's drunk already. "nothin' bad about that. just a woman who loves you."

her son rolls his eyes but sort of grins. what must he think, ada wonders, of this family of his.

tom's arm is still around her. after a pause ada sits carefully next to her brother, and he returns his attention to the chess game.

it's only once she's settled completely and comfortably next to him on the sofa with her paperwork and whiskey in hand that tommy lets go of her. her skin _burns_.

* * *

"he hasn't been sleeping, much," lizzie admits to her. her voice crackles over the phone and ada leans her forehead against the wall with a sigh. "i thought i understood him. i thought he would tell me."

ada shakes her head to herself. karl is at school and she's been feeling just a touch ill lately - the london brownstone bought with dirty money feels jarringly empty.

"lizzie, you know how he is," she replies, keeps her tone neutral and politically practiced. she wants to scream, she finds, an urge borne out of some pent up resentment, because all those years of lizzie falling over herself _in love_ with tom, jealous of grace or may or jessie, and now they're together the way she always wanted, she's _still_ not _happy_ , and lizzie of all people should _know fucking better_ -

"alright, i'll call and tell him to drop by here before he leaves tonight -"

"ada," lizzie interrupts. "would you - talk to him, ada. he's in his head. much as i try the kids know when we're fighting. ruby's still young, but charlie -" she breaks off.

ada waits.

"charlie's too used to it," lizzie finishes, and ada hears her breathe in like she's trying not to cry.

ada bites her bottom lip, taps her head against the wall and fights herself; she loses.

"i'll...i'll see," she answers. "i'll try. goodbye, lizzie."

she hangs up before lizzie can reply, stares blankly at the phone sitting on the table and her now-cold, half-finished tea beside it.

she did not tell lizzie about the laudanum.

she hasn't even told polly - tommy _deserves_ his ghosts, she tells herself, and also it's _tommy_ and tommy's _always_ fine, and yet there's dread pooling in her stomach when she thinks of it, like she can't help but wonder if she gave him a death sentence by encouraging him to talk to a doctor - as if she's brought his demons to the forefront and now his children and his family and business will pay the price.

business that tom is building up, again, discontented despite all that he's amassed already.

she wonders if grace would have known what to say - and then answers her own question, because grace never needed to speak to get through to her brother - she'd just have looked at him with raised eyebrows and blue eyes and a knowing half-smirk on her lips, as if she already knew; would have sung a ballad about ireland or the war or a girl's love and somehow it would have said everything that needed to be said.

aunt pol had hated grace. hated the way she spoke with an irish lilt to her voice and blue eyes that held secrets. but ada had wanted to love her like a sister. she _had_ loved her like a sister. 

abruptly, ada picks up the teacup, turns toward the corridor and hurls the dish at the wall. it's worth more than likely every possession she'd ever owned in small heath. it shatters completely - ceramic shards with pretty little flowers carefully painted clattering to the ground with a satisfying crash. one piece, larger than the others, displays a tiny red rose.

(so ada's got a bit of that shelby family temper in her too, after all.)

* * *

she calls tommy over, personally pesters him into agreeing. ben and karl are already seated at the table, and when her brother arrives they have dinner and drink irish and make small talk about karl's school and the new hotel being developed in the city. the whole affair is _almost_ funny.

that night, after karl's gone up to bed and ben has returned to his apartment for the night, tommy's reading over the latest draft of a bill in her living room and ada gathers her courage and joins him. he barely glances up when she sits across from him. 

he's sitting there reading like he gives a shit. like he believes in anything bigger than _himself_. like he isn't living off of opium only to kill himself, slowly, to join his dead wife and escape it all (and leave his children behind, leave _her_ behind).

like he cares that she's seen and heard his colleagues do things, make deals at other's expense; that government isn't sacred and she should have known, really, and what an _utter, fucking disappointment_ this life has been.

ada opens her mouth but nothing comes out. whatever words she had practiced to herself have faded away into the chasm between them. she stays silent, until tom sighs and looks up.

"alright, ada, i can _hear_ you thinking over there so go ahead and start whatever lecture you're - ada?"

jesus, she's crying. there's tears blurring her vision and no words coming out, still, and it's more hyperventilating than outright _sobbing_ , but - 

tommy drops his pen and stares at her.

"what the fuck?"

"oh, fuck," she says, brokenly.

"ada, what is it?" tommy asks, sharply. he reaches forward and grabs her. 

ada sniffs, and brings her hands up to her face, trying desperately to breathe. she counts in her head and tries not to shudder and wonders what the _absolute_ _fuck_ she's crying about.

"tell me, ada, whatever it is, i promise i'll fix it, alright? i'll fix it."

she can't hold the tears back at that - they slip down her cheeks and ada curses.

tommy looks at her with real, genuine fear in his eyes - and she hasn't seen that look often, no, but she has seen it enough to recognize it. through her haze of tears ada sees him tighten his grip on her shoulders and look around, stare between the phone behind her and his gun on the table next to them -

she half-laughs through a sob. here's her terrifying older brother - thomas shelby, MP, leader of the peaky _fuckin'_ blinders - scared to death because of his little sister crying in front of him with no discernible threat to shoot. the thought makes her snort a little hysterically, and her brother's expression grows even more lost.

realizing she's likely going to cause him to have a bloody coronary, ada tries to calm her breathing enough to say: "i - i'm alright, it's just - you'll think i'm an idiot -"

she hadn't meant to say that part. 

for his part, tommy just looks at her, bewildered. it's that look, that look of childish confusion and yet, determination to solve the problem, whatever it is, that makes ada forget any bare minimum sound reasoning she may have had left and launch herself at her brother, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her forehead into the crook of his shoulder. she feels him stiffen in her arms.

"what the - ada, _tell me what the fuck is wrong_ \- "

she breathes out, slow, feels tommy's hands come up to her back and, tentatively, press her closer into him.

she doesn't move, but her breathing is calm and the tear tracks are drying on her skin. they're both quiet while she gathers her courage.

"tommy," she begins, exhaustion seeping into her tone despite herself. "i don't know what more you want from us."

to his credit, her brother seems genuinely confused.

"ada -"

"no," she interrupts, sharp. she pulls back far enough to look her brother in the face. "you're my brother, and i… _anything_ , tom, you know that i would…"

slowly, tommy nods. ada lowers her gaze, newly hesitant, and continues: "you push yourself too far into - into complications. then you take opium to solve the complications. it scares me, tommy."

tommy scoffs lightly. she sounds like a child, she knows this, and how ada _hates_ to sound childish in front of him - but what else is there to do but bare her empty palms to her brother, no tricks up her sleeves, display her weaknesses and hope it surprises him enough that he forgets to be cruel?

her voice hardens at the thought. "you gave the family a chance. _this_ chance. just…why can't you just let things _be_ , tom?"

she hasn't spoken to him like this in years - like she's a little girl still afraid of her father's temper, with no choice but to hide behind her brothers when he'd come home drunk and in a rage. all it does is make ada resent herself for speaking what is, in fact, the truth.

her brothers had never let their father touch her while he was there. 

(there's that shelby spiral into madness, she thinks to herself. round and around and around.)

there's a beat of silence, where the two siblings appraise each other, and ada watches her brother's expression shift into familiarly cold anger. abruptly, tommy stands, pushing the chair back noisily and fumbling with his cigarettes.

he stops at the corridor wall a few feet away where only a few hours ago ada had promised his wife she'd try to undo years worth of pain, and lights one, smokes too quickly through it and lights another.

he's quiet. she's so tired it hurts, bones feeling anchored to the ground as she stands up and approaches him where he's turned to face her, leaning against the sideboard.

tommy doesn't look up at her, just inhales from his cigarette and presses a hand to his eyes.

(she wants to say something more. she wishes she had the words.)

before she can think twice, ada stands up and reaches out, wrapping her hand around the back of tommy's neck - she feels the barely there stubble, growing back from his severe haircut - and then shifting her fingers to his collar. it's pressed, white, proper in a way she could never have dreamed when they were children and soot was stained into their very skin. it's funny to see tom done up that way -

(but it's one of those things that's only funny if you're a shelby).

he's looking at her now - his face a mask, a blank canvas, retreating into himself at the first sign of any threat.

despite any lingering hesitation, she shifts her hand on her brother's shoulder and sees the white undershirt underneath soaked with sweat, his chest heaving, and touches the base of his neck.

tom breathes out heavily, and then - he leans forward and rests his head on ada's shoulder. her other hand comes up around his shoulder, to the back of his head, stroking her fingers down his scalp the way their mother would whenever one of the boys was sick. ada fights tears.

"listen, thomas," she says finally. the words hurt on their way out and she wonders if she'd be better off choking herself with them instead. "you have to slow down. the laudanum - it can kill you."

she feels tommy slowly shake his head against her.

"i keep seeing things, ada," he says, after some quiet. his voice is low, like he's telling her a secret and the walls are listening. "grace. shovels, and mud." he scoffs. "sapphires."

ada keeps moving her fingers slowly through his close cropped hair, saying nothing.

(she doesn't know how to tell her brother that sapphires aren't really cursed and spirits don't really exist - or if they did, they'd have more important things to do than follow around the living.)

she says instead, biting to hurt: "lizzie tells me that your children flinch when your car comes up, because they know you're going to fight."

(tommy in unable to accept comfort, accept love. she hopes the hurt will jolt him awake instead).

* * *

"so the conservatives want to renegotiate on the tax legislation - of course, labour is still publicly opposing but there's been talk of an agreement or a deal of some -"

"i don't like that," tom interrupts and comes to a halt in the courtyard. ada glances up from the paperwork she's skimming as they walk through westminster towards tom's office. he's smoking and carrying his briefcase, and his face remains carefully impassive.

when he doesn't continue walking or speaking, ada resumes, a little confused: "well, no one _likes_ the bill as it is, tommy, but -"

"fuck the bill!" he snaps, voice low in his throat, dangerous. "i don't like the way they look at me," he adds.

ada glances around them surreptitiously. sure enough, MPs avert their eyes instantaneously, immediately conversing with a gusto she's not sure they'd shown on their wedding days. she's not naive enough to be flattered.

"what?" ada asks, somewhat exasperated but still quiet. "why are you paying them any mind?"

tom exhales. clouds of smoke catch the light streaming through the pillars and look ethereal, like fairy magic. she's reminded of the fog and smoke of small heath, and for a moment, ada wonders if she's stilll in birmingham and she's caught influenza and is having some morphine-induced fever dream where she and her brother get to walk around parliament. the thought makes her lips quirk the slightest. maybe they'll run into the king, next. 

"appearances, ada," tom snarks. he doesn't meet her eyes, still. "you're the one harping about being more approachable, or i'd cut 'em a smile each."

in a whirlwind, she realizes this for what it is: a moment of insecurity, of doubt, of _who am i and what am i doing here_. she can't believe he's letting her see him like this, but then again for all his efforts tommy runs on emotion and impulse more than any of them.

outwardly, ada sniffs haughtily. shuffles her papers neatly and straightens.

" _you_ ," she tells him, quiet but firm, answering the question he really wanted to ask. " - are an elected member of parliament. you fought in france and came back. you're born and raised in birmingham and you have two beautiful children. _that_ is why you're here, thomas."

there's a moment of quiet as tommy appears to ponder her words, or maybe _her_ , and ada battles the urge to take him into her arms and protect her brother like she would her son from a schoolyard bully. she shakes her head at herself.

(not that anyone would ever bully karl, of course - he is a shelby in all but name.)

ada starts walking again.

"and if you think anyone's looking at _you_ , i'd remind you that _i'm_ the only woman in the building."

she doesn't look back but she swears she feels tommy quirk his lips up in an almost smile, and so that's enough of that for today.

* * *

once, when ada was eleven, her father had hit her.

once.

her brothers had come home and seen the red around her eye and on her cheek, and aunt pol hadn't been home all day so she didn't have any makeup to hide it or treat it. they froze at the sight of her, but then arthur had wet a cloth and wiped cool water gently over the rapidly-forming bruise. she'd cried a little, more out of frustration that she had to be taken care of than actual pain, when he pressed into the wound, but ada hadn't said a word.

(what was there to say? they all knew already. this was just the thing that happened in small heath.)

john, who teased her and pulled her hair and fought with her tooth and nail, hadn't uttered a single remark. he'd shoved her a little, playfully, grinning uncomfortably like he didn't know what else to do with himself.

tommy had left the house, and ada didn't see him the rest of the day. she took care of finn and tried to do her homework and ignored the ache from her blackening eye, and it was only hours later when she awoke in the middle of the night and saw him standing in the doorway of the room she shared with aunt pol and finn.

they'd looked at each other, not speaking, until he'd come to her bed and run a hand over her hair, kissed her temple and rested his forehead against hers until she closed her eyes again.

her father had disappeared for years, after that day.

(years later in the garrison, john revealed to her that tom had seen her and left the house to find their father at his favorite pub, drunk, laughing, gambling.

"he'd kill for you," john told her, tipsy. "almost did."

john had passed out shortly after, but ada had sipped her whiskey and stayed awake the whole night, waiting for tommy to get back from wherever he was and whatever he was doing.)

* * *


End file.
